


My Fingers Are for Battle

by imstillprettyodd



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Character Study, Coming of Age, Gen, Growing Up, Latin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imstillprettyodd/pseuds/imstillprettyodd
Summary: An origin story of Vulpes Inculta, from his birth to the first battle of Hoover Dam, because I love him.Title is a little adaptation of a line from Psalm 144.





	My Fingers Are for Battle

His mother was surprised at his paleness, but smiled and laughed into his soft skin when he was born. Months before, his father had been struck by a Yao Gaui when out hunting and she had cried and caressed her stomach. At least she still had her son. 

Her son, black-haired, blue-eyed, a handsome boy who lost his baby teeth earlier than the other children in the tribe. She doted on him, let him play in the dirt with the boys and did not scold when he came back dirty, only wiped his face clean and kissed his forehead.

She was the one who taught him to hunt, and he earned his first scar at six. The second from scraping his knee on a cave entrance as he explored. He came back crying, not having noticed the pain until he looked down.

He ate berries and gecko steaks and spoke his native tongue with his mother's dialect, lilting on consonants and breathing out vowels. His tribe had borrowed the language from another, a larger one, that lived South, near the big river. He had always wanted to see the river. 

And then, in the summer after he had turned eight, when the sun baked the clay on his face so much that it looked like the dry desert, men came. The scouts ran from their perches to the elders, relaying that there were men dressed in red armor with guns in their hands stalking through the canyon. They carried flags with a gold bull and there were so many of them. And they were heading to the heart of the canyon where the tribe was settled. 

The elders alerted everyone. The women and children were to hide in the caves, as always, and the men would stand guard. They had done this times before, when soldiers in beige passed by and other unfamiliar tribes. But they had never wandered far into the tribe's territory.

His mother grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him into their home, far into the dark cave. And they waited. 

He could feel his mother's heartbeat against his back and her breath on the top of his head. She pressed her lips to his hair as he struggled against her grasp. He wasn't afraid. He was never afraid when they hid in the caves.

There was no noise for awhile, and then the voice of one of the elders floated into the cave to the boy's ears. He stopped moving and his mother's hands settled on his arms, warm and soft. He was too far away to make out what was being said, but another voice quickly joined the elder's. It was speaking their tongue, but in a rough tone, as if the speaker was just taught the language. More speaking, from both sides, and then as the boy strained his ears, the unknown voice grew louder until a sound rang out through the rocks. Everyone knew that sound. They had heard it once or twice before, loud and harsh: a gunshot. 

The boy's mother started and pulled him tighter. That was when the screams started from the other caves and there were sounds all around. His mother backed the two of them into the cave wall, into a corner. He heard women yelling, men grunting--it was the sound of fighting. He depressed into his mother, who felt right now like a blanket, protecting him from everything happening outside the cave.

But she could not protect him from the shadow that appeared in the entrance of their home. It came closer, light shining from behind it. There was a sharp intake of breath from his mother as the figure approached. It was a man, tall, with a gun at his hip, and a gaze like cold death in his eyes. 

"Stay away!" The boy's mother shouted and moved back. 

The man didn't listen. He came closer, even as the woman kicked and screamed at him and he wrestled the child from her grasp. A small heel struck him in the chest and the boy howled for his mother, who reached for him: her only life source. Finally, like a swimmer breaking the surface, the boy collided into the chest of the man. His thin arms flailed and his mother crawled pathetically across the dirt floor of the cave toward him and the man. Her cheeks were stained with tears, his throat ached from screaming.

The mother moved, launching herself, but the man held out an arm and called in his language for other men to come. Two took her by the arms and pushed her against the cave wall, still kneeling. The men looked at the man holding the still-kicking child and spoke to him. The man nodded his head, and took the child from the cave.

The boy's eyes burned from the sudden sunlight and the smoke in the air. Fires consumed the tents they used for ceremonies, the rack with the meat hanging, their clothes, everything besides the people were burning. The boy's other tribesmen were being taking like he was, heavy, metal collars put around their necks. He scrambled against the arms of the man, trying to turn to face his cave, to try to see if his mother was alright, but the man grabbed his face and pushed it back, so that he was forced to watch the men in armor gather his people and set them in cages. 

They did not put him in a cage. The man who was dressed differently from the others with the blue eyes and brown hair had tied his hands together and was dragging him, forcing his feet to catch up with the rest of his body. They left the canyon as the boy turned back to see his home falling apart. He wanted his mother and her rough, warm hands. He furrowed his brows and looked at the ground passing him. A thought swirled in his mind: She will find me. 

For the boy, the journey seemed longer than three days. He finally saw the river from high up, bluish-green in the hot sunlight. His tongue and lips were unbearably dry and begged for water, which was dripped into his mouth every few miles from a canister. His wrists ached from the rope rubbing against them, and he often caught the pained expressions of his tribesmen as he walked along beside them. One, an older boy who had been a hunter, spoke to him on the first day, as they trudged through the night.

"Do not worry about your mother, boy. She has gone where we all will one day." 

He didn't mean to, but the boy began crying, tears running down his dirty face. He whimpered slightly, drawing the attention of the man leading him. A smack across the face left his cheek reddened and his mouth shut. He turned away from the boy who had spoken to him. His eyes focused on the ground below him--all the small rocks and sand under his feet.

* * *

Flagstaff was what the men called it and a towering red flag with a bull upon it stood in the middle. Fires burned, men talked, boys ran around, chasing after each other with sticks. Cabins made from wood were situated around a large Pre-War building. The boy was separated from the others, taken to one of the cabins, and put in a chair. Everything around him seemed a blur, besides the man standing in front of him. The boy's eyes rose to observe him. He didn't look like the others. His skin was paler and his hair was neatly parted. Two cold blue eyes stared at him. The man opened his mouth.

"You are part of the Caesar's Legion, now. You will follow every command that is given and will only speak when spoken to, understood?" He was speaking the tribe's language and it sounded guttural on his tongue. The boy didn't understand, but he nodded his head anyway. He didn't want to be here, he felt itchy and the heat was stifling in the cabin. 

The man worked tying the rope around the back of the chair as a woman came in. She was dressed in rags with a large red x painted on them. A frown occupied her face and a bucket of water and shears occupied her hands. The man stood and the woman bowed her head as he passed her and stood in a space near the door. The only thing the boy could do as the woman rubbed his face aggressively with a rag was squirm in the chair. 

"Stop moving, boy." The man had his arms crossed and was eyeing the scene.

The boy did as he was told and winced as he his face was cleaned. She moved behind him and took his hair in her hands. He could feel the feathers being taken out, and the length reduced to the base of his head.

And as the dirty water and strands of black hair fell to the wood, the boy dropped his head and blinked his eyes. Tears pushed between his lashes, but he wiped them away quickly, hoping the man wouldn't see. 

The man took something from the desk in the cabin: a piece of folded clothing and shooed the woman away with it. He threw it into the boy's lap and circled him to untie the ropes. 

"Put it on and wait outside. I will come back to get you." The boy was left alone in the cabin. With his hands freed, he rubbed his raw wrists and couldn't suppress the impulse to touch his hair. It felt unusually soft and the sides of it did not reach past his ears. He touched the clothing next--rough, gray fabric that felt unfamiliar. He took the hem of his animal skins and lifted them over his head, exposing his own pale skin to the warmth of the cabin. He pushed his former clothing into the corner and donned this 'Legion's" garb instead. 

He padded down to the door of the cabin, carefully, quickly looking back at his discarded strands of hair and clothing. He turned back to the door and opened it, welcomed by the same scene from when he first entered Flagstaff, except this time the sun burned his eyes and the planks of wood on the porch burned his bare feet. He went down the steps into the sand and looked around him. To the side of him was the man, standing beside a fighting dummy. He motioned the boy over with a nod of his head and placed a small machete in his hands. 

"Go on, attack." 

The boy's hands tightened around the weapon and he took slow breaths. In his mind, he pictured himself fighting geckos. 

* * *

He could feel his lungs working as he turned the corner and the recruit instructor came into view. He pushed his legs harder and propelled himself past the boy beside him. And finally, it was as if an invisible rope had stopped him, his torso crossed the line drawn in the sand, then his head and outstretched arms, and finally his feet.

"It wasn't a race," the instructor muttered and smacked him on the back. "But Caesar will know of this." The boy smiled slightly at this and was released to lunch, heading for Joshua's large cabin. Joshua. It had taken him a while to learn that name. All the vowels and soft sounds made it hard for his lips and tongue. 

His mentor was sitting at his desk as always, writing and mapping things the boy didn't have the patience to understand. He turned his head when the boy appeared at his shoulder and opened his mouth. "I won the race," he told him in his native language.

"English," Joshua replied, crossing out something in red. 

"I won...race."

"'The race,'" Joshua corrected and cleared his throat. "Soon you will get your name, as all Legionaries do."

"My...Latin...name?" The boy asked in English, hopeful. He had been studying under Joshua's guidance, along with his daily English lessons. Lord Caesar had even approved of Joshua's mentoring of him for the past four years, since his arrival.

"Yes." He was silent for a moment. "But there's one final test." The boy nodded, he knew his ability in physical combat would be tested in the arena, and briefly glanced at his knuckles. 

Joshua turned and stood, using his hand to dismiss the boy. "Go and bring back food for us," he told him.

When the boy woke from his cot the next day, he immediately changed into his barely-padded training armor. Other recruits were rising beside him, awoken by the noise of men outside. The tests were beginning now. The boys flooded from the cabin and to the large arena, where the instructor and Caesar and Joshua waited. The boy kneeled when he reached the entrance of the arena, kneeled before Caesar. The small group all sunk to their knees and dropped their heads. A smile came across their Lord's face. 

"This is a monumental moment for all of you." The boy listened intently to Caesar speak, his eyes flashing with admiration. His small hands sat on his knee. "You've almost completed your training and this final test will weed out the weak of you," he continued. "Are you all ready?"

The boy nodded, along with the others. They were ready, their fingertips twitching with nervous energy. And then the oldest boys were called forward. The older ones make for the most exciting shows, the boy thought to himself. He had seen initiates before him rise and fall, struggle and die, overcome and succeed. 

His body heated uncomfortably as the boys dwindled down, one coming out broken and bruised. Caesar watched with dark eyes and Joshua stood beside him, hands behind his back. It would be decided what would be done with those ones later. And finally, the boy and the one beside him we're called forward. They matched each other with their gazes. The other was skinny with large hands and a scowl on his face. The boy lowered himself into a crouching position, fingers open towards his opponent. His spit tasted like iron, as if he had bit his cheek and he swallowed hard. He would come out on top, he knew he would. 

The arena leader signaled to them and the pale boy lunged at the other initiate. He was thrown off his balance by the force and his back hit the sand hard. Thin hands pushed into his shoulders and his head hit the ground. He winced, but pushed back and the boy struggled with him, his fingernails scraping at his skin. "I'll win," the boy on top of the other muttered in Latin through clenched teeth. He moved his knees to hold the other still and could feel the balls of his feet digging into the ground. Suddenly, his grip slipped and his opponent broke free, jumping up. The boy had been knocked back and scrambled as the other came for him quickly.

He was tackled in an instant and his enemy was on top of him. A fist met his face immediately and in instinct, he covered his face with his thin arms. But the other initiate attacked those too. Blue eyes rapidly searched the area around him. Out of the corner, he saw the figure of Joshua, and sitting in the dirt, a rock no bigger than his hand. He attempted to calm himself as he struggled with the onslaught of attacks. In an instant, one of his arms left his face and he forgot the pain as he stretched himself to grab the rock. It was a harsh texture that rubbed against his skin as he wrapped his fingers around the edge. He pulled it to him and struck once, twice, three, four, five times.

There was an audible shock from the legionaries as the boy on top of him screamed and tried to protect himself. Blood rushed from the wound in his head. He fell back in pain, but the boy was quick to rush to complete the job.

Blood and brains on the rock, his hands, the other boy's own hands and face. The boy was finished, exhausted, and dropped the weapon. The rush was diluting with his weariness in the most pleasurable way. A small smile lighted his youthful face. And the expression of the other was agony, in his open mouth and wide eyes. 

The boy's eyes rose and he met the face of Joshua first. There was a frown that washed the smile off of his face. Caesar was still in surprise. The arena leader rushed toward him and grabbed him by the arm. Blood coated his palms like sweat and the legionary refused to be too close to him. Joshua was the one who took him away into his cabin and hit him across the mouth with the back of his hand. 

"Idiot boy," he yelled at him, face contorted in anger. The boy wanted to fold into himself. He thought his mentor would be proud, but no, instead, he was slowly backing him into the wall of the cabin, muttering how he should have him flogged after the naming ceremony, how he depleted a portion of the Legion's army. The boy did not realize that he was a part of an army. He turned his face away when Joshua came closer to him and lowered his face to his height. "This is a transgression worthy of crucifixion, understood?" The boy did not move, so Joshua grabbed his face, where the dead boy had broken the skin and shouted: "Understood?" He almost wanted to cry as he managed to nod his head in Joshua's grasp. 

The tests came to an end and the boy kneeled in his place with the others in the old city hall. Time passed and the boy let his anxiousness surface past the guilt he felt--the guilt Joshua had driven in like a nail. It was finally his turn and he faced Caesar as if looking at the sun. 

"Ah, and you. Maybe I should name you 'killer.' Maybe I should name you something just off the top of my head. But you...the Legate and I have been waiting to name you, Vulpes Inculta."

The boy's whole body felt alive and he dropped his head in gratefulness. His mind worked as he translated the words. Rough fox, fox of the desert. He bit his lip and grinned.  
 


End file.
